First Date
by Clara Barton
Summary: At Wufei's instance, Duo takes Trowa out on their first date.


First Date

Shit.

There was still grime under his nails, still a bit of grease or oil from that afternoon, when Duo had run away from the boring as fuck paperwork in his cubicle and wandered to the garage and joined the staff mechanics as they tinkered with some of the vehicles.

He had scrubbed his hands clean and showered, had done a damn good job of shaving too - but he had missed that thin black line of grime and it seemed like a sign.

Like a warning that this was all going to go horribly wrong.

Duo cursed himself for being an idiot, cursed the world for having expectations - and cursed Wufei Chang, in particular, for enforcing those expectations.

As he searched for his pocket knife to clean out the grime, Duo allowed himself to think of inventive ways to make Chang's life a living hell. Duo could tell Une that Wufei was desperate to be partnered with Heero on a Relena bodyguard mission - those two couldn't spend ten minutes together without coming to blows. That could be decent revenge.

Or better yet, Duo could request to be partnered with Wufei on _his_ next undercover mission.

Duo snorted in amusement. Yes. Perfect. The high and mighty Wufei Chang forced to dress like a space rat and haul cargo around for drug lords for a few months until they could compile enough intel to bust them. That. That would be revenge.

Duo cleaned his nails and inspected them again. Good. Better. Still just the faintest, thinnest line of black but the only way he could get that out would probably result in cutting himself. Grime over blood, he decided and put the knife away.

But now he wondered if he'd missed something else, so he went back into the bathroom and inspected himself in the mirror.

His suit was clean, was pressed even because Duo had stolen Heero's iron for the occasion. The suit wasn't great, wasn't designer and it fit Duo well enough, but it wasn't great. Wasn't stylish or sexy or anything other than the serviceable black suit that Duo had purchased three years ago the first time he was forced to attend a formal event where his Preventers dress uniform wasn't appropriate.

Duo tugged at the black tie and thought that maybe he should have bought a tie - should have made the effort, probably, instead of just using his Preventers dress tie… but it was too late for that now. Besides. Black was his thing. It was okay.

He looked okay.

Duo sighed.

This was stupid. It was fucking ridiculous, going out on a date with the man he'd been fucking on and off for the last year and a half. A date. They didn't need to date - didn't need to do whatever the hell conventional relationship bullshit things Wufei insisted they needed to do. They didn't need to put themselves through this.

Hell, Duo didn't need to put himself through this. Dressing up, playing make believe, as though they were real people, normal people who could go out and eat by candlelight and talk about the weather and not look at the candle flame and think about that time they'd been stuck on M2367 after the riots and they'd had to light a fire, had had to resort to burning books to keep warm because the enviro controls for the colony had been wrecked during the riots.

The doorbell rang and Duo forced himself to stop glaring at his own reflection.

He didn't need to do this, but it was too late to back out now.

Duo opened the door and stared.

Okay. This… wasn't fair. At all.

Trowa stood in the open doorway, a slight frown on his face, and he looked amazing. Gorgeous. Sexy. Like a model or something in a suit that clearly, so very clearly wasn't from the same crap department store where Duo had purchased his.

No, Trowa's suit looked like it had been tailored just for him - and Duo abruptly realized it probably had been.

Three years ago, when Quatre had been married, Duo had bought his crappy suit to attend the wedding, but Trowa had been in the wedding party, had been Quatre's best man and it made sense. Yeah, this was that same suit, and Duo remembered now, remembered thinking that charcoal gray was really, really good looking on Trowa.

"You look great," he had to say, realizing that he had been staring for too long.

"So do you." The frown smoothed out and Trowa's eyes raked over Duo.

Duo snorted. He knew what he looked like. He knew he wasn't Trowa, wasn't some god with a perfectly sculpted body. He was thin and scarred and he looked and felt ridiculous in his suit.

The frown was back.

"Ah… I guess we should go? I made the reservations for eight."

Trowa nodded and stepped aside to allow Duo to leave the apartment.

They walked down the eight flights of stairs to the ground level in silence, only the pounding of their feet on the concrete and Duo's heart against his ribs echoing in Duo's ears.

Screw Wufei and his stupid ideas about commitment and human interaction.

Duo drove them over to the restaurant, some fancy place by the water that Heero had suggested.

"Saw Tucker today," Duo said after five minutes of awkward silence in the car.

"He seems better," Trowa replied.

Duo nodded.

"Yeah, wounds are healing nicely… 'course, I'm still going to give him crap about lighting himself on fire for the next few months."

"Accidents happen," Trowa murmured, but there was a hint of dark amusement in his voice.

Duo smirked, glanced over and saw that Trowa was looking at him, some strange expression on his face that Duo had never seen before.

"What?" Duo asked as he looked away, back at the road before he killed them.

"Nothing," Trowa assured him. "Just thinking."

"Gotta stop doing that. I keep telling you, Tro - it's bad for you."

"I know."

They fell silent again, and Duo filled the silence by mentally cursing Wufei in his head.

Where did Wufei even get off coming down to Duo's cubicle and telling him to get his shit together and ask Trowa out on a proper date instead of just fucking him in the showers or the med bay when they ran into each other or, on those too rare occasions, when they were assigned on missions together and fucked like each time could be their last? Wufei didn't know, didn't understand, couldn't possibly get the fact that commitment was the most terrifying idea Duo had ever encountered. He couldn't even begin to understand that the concept of dating, of acting like a civilian, was the most foreign thing he had ever been told to do.

They arrived at the restaurant and Duo parked.

He glared at the place - swanky, the parking lot filled with expensive cars that probably cost as much as Duo made in a year.

What the hell was he doing?

Trowa was looking at him again, so Duo sighed, forced a smile, and turned to him.

"Ready?"

Trowa arched an eyebrow.

"We aren't about to invade a smuggler's den, Duo."

Duo had to laugh.

"Yeah, yeah I guess not."

Inside the restaurant they were greeted by a sneering host, who arched an eyebrow at Duo and Duo resisted the urge to smooth down his hair and his clothes.

"Ah, we have a reservation. Maxwell."

The host ran his finger over a list.

"Yes… very well."

They followed the man to a table near the windows, with a great view of the water, of the sun setting on the horizon and it was nice. It was good. Heero had been right - if you had to be stuck in a stupid suit, in a stupid restaurant on this stupid rock - this was the view you wanted to be stuck with.

"This is nice," Trowa commented.

Duo shrugged.

"Never been here. But it… sounded like a nice place."

Like the kind of place Quatre would probably take Trowa, the kind of place where normal people would go and do their normal, civilian dating thing.

Trowa was looking over the menu, his lips slightly pursed, and he looked sexy as hell. Looked like he was looking over mission specs and Duo wanted nothing more than to haul him to the bathroom, hell the car even, and strip him out of that suit and fuck him until Trowa was shuddering and moaning and looking at Duo as if the rest of the world could go down in flames around them and it didn't matter.

But Wufei. Wufei with his stupid ideas - his instance on no sex. On doing this the right way.

Maybe Duo could convince Une to send all three of them - Heero, Wufei and Duo - on a mission together. That would sure as hell be revenge. Then again, Duo might not be able to handle their constant bickering himself.

A waiter came by and offered them a wine list.

Duo stared at the leather folio in his outstretched hand.

Wine.

Right. Civilian things, civilian drinks.

Duo didn't, as a rule, drink much. It did funny things to his memory and his reflexes and a few times over the years, sure, he'd indulged in spacer moonshine brewed in shipboard stills… but wine?

Trowa took the menu from the expectant waiter.

"Thank you," he murmured politely.

The waiter nodded and then left.

"I guess… whatever you want," Duo said as Trowa flipped open the menu.

Then he remembered something Quatre had said, had been bitching about during their last conversation - you paired wine with food, didn't you? You had to pick a wine that went with the sauce or the meat or the… Duo would never understand Terrans, would never understand the people that did things the old Terran ways.

Trowa shrugged one shoulder.

"We don't have to order any."

Duo frowned. He knew Trowa drank wine - he'd watched Trowa and Quatre go through bottles of the stuff whenever they were together, joking and friendly and all handsy with each other as they got drunk.

"Go ahead. I know you like it."

Trowa met his gaze.

"But you don't."

He had tried a glass of something red and bitter once, with them, and hadn't been impressed. He also hadn't been too impressed with the way that Quatre leaned against Trowa's side or the way Trowa ran his hands through Quatre's hair either.

"Just… just get what you want," Duo told him.

Why the fuck was this so hard?

Why the fuck was this even necessary?

What, exactly, was wrong with the way things had been? What was wrong with getting back from a mission and finding Trowa waiting for him on the other side of the door after he finished his debrief? What was wrong with Trowa dragging him into Wufei's office late at night and fucking him over the desk? What was wrong with Duo sitting beside Trowa's bed in the med bay and watching over him while he was unconscious after surgery and then kissing him when he woke up?

The waiter came back and Trowa ordered wine, something French that sounded like a caress when Trowa said it, and then the waiter rattled off a list of specials and asked what they wanted.

Shit. Food.

Duo had been so busy feeling inferior and stupid to even look at the menu.

"We would like a few minutes," Trowa said, his voice smooth and Duo blushed.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"For what? I'm not in a hurry."

Duo couldn't stop the look of horror from crossing his face.

Trowa wanted to take his _time_ with this torture?

The frown was back.

"Duo -"

"See anything on the menu you like?" Duo interrupted him.

He flipped open the menu and stared.

It was in French.

He stared at it.

He stared at the alien words and he contemplated a double murder suicide. He'd kill Wufei first, for suggesting this shit, and then Heero, for casually mentioning that this restaurant was nice and Trowa would like it, and then himself, for being a clueless moron with black grease under his left thumbnail.

When the waiter came back Trowa ordered smoothly, said the French words as though they were his native language and then the waiter turned to Duo.

Shit.

"Ah, I'll have the...Estouffade de Calmars aux Poireaux." He was sure he butchered it. Was sure he had no idea what the fuck it was, but it was the first thing on the list of entrees and he couldn't be bothered to try to figure out what any of it was.

The waiter nodded, collected the menus, and left them alone.

Trowa sipped his wine and Duo found himself fiddling with the knife on the table.

It was heavy, well balanced. Not a bad weapon, if a little dull, but… in case there was any need to have a weapon in a fancy French restaurant in San Francisco at sunset, Duo now knew he had one.

"Heero said the newest recruits are going to be the death of him," Duo said into the silence.

Trowa smirked slightly.

"He says that about all of the recruits."

Duo nodded in agreement.

When not assigned as a bodyguard for Relena, Heero had the dubious honor of training new Preventers recruits in hand to hand combat.

"I was going to hack into the vid feed from their training session today, but I ran out of time before…" before Duo had spent two hours in the shower, scrubbing his body and his hair and shaving and then meticulously drying and re-braiding his hair.

"Quatre wants me to visit next month."

Duo nodded.

Quatre always wanted Trowa to visit, always wanted him to spend whatever leave he had with him at one of his dozens of mansions on the Earth or in the colonies.

"Think you can come?"

Duo frowned.

"With you?"

Trowa nodded.

"Uh…" Quatre liked to have get-togethers for all of the pilots, liked to invite them to visit during holidays and memorial days and Duo went because it would be pathetic not to go, and even though he spent every moment glaring at Quatre, at the way his gaze and his touch lingered on Trowa even when he was sober, even when his wife was in the same room, Duo couldn't refuse the invitations.

But he had never been asked to go on one of Trowa's visits, when just Trowa and Quatre spent time together.

He frowned. Maybe it was some kind of holiday and he had forgotten?  
>"Heero and Wufei going?"<p>

The frown was back.

"No. Just me."

"Oh. Uh, I can check. I know Une wants me back out for something in a few weeks but -"

Trowa shrugged.

"Just an idea."

The waiter arrived with their food and Duo stared down at his plate.

What the fuck was this?

There were tentacles. Tentacles and wilted green things in a sauce that looked like blood and tentacles.

He looked over at Trowa's meal, at a thick steak and slivers of golden potatoes and fuck.

Why the fuck hadn't he just said "same" when Trowa ordered?

"Looks great," Duo said when both Trowa and the waiter stared at him.

The watier smirked, said something in French, and left them.

Duo stared at the meal. He didn't even want to try it - and he didn't even know how to approach it… how to deal with the tentacles and what the hell did tentacles even taste like?

He had the very inappropriate thought that one of the thicker tentacles was almost the color of Trowa's cock when he was hard and desperate and begging and -

Inappropriate and weird. Now he definitely couldn't eat this dish. He couldn't think about biting into one of these tentacles, couldn't deal with the mental image of Trowa's cock and biting things.

But the frown was still there, Trowa's brows drawn together in concern and his lips thin and compressed.

Duo sighed and picked up his fork. He could at least attack the wilted green things in the blood sauce.

It seemed to take hours for Trowa to finish his steak while Duo picked at the green things and pushed the food on his plate around and felt, every minute, worse and worse about this whole thing.

And maybe that was the point, he realized.

Maybe that's why Wufei had insisted on this and Heero had suggested this place.

Because this whole thing - this thing with Trowa - was not going to work.

They weren't normal and they weren't civilians and it was crystal clear that Trowa could do this - could do civilian things, fancy civilian things in fancy suits and fancy foreign languages. But Duo… Duo could only stare at his plate of bloody tentacles and hope this ended and he could go home and message Une and request the soonest, longest deployment possible and pray that Trowa just forgot this disaster ever happened in the first place.

Finally the check arrived and Duo paid, didn't even care that he paid more for this meal than he usually spent on a month of groceries. No price was too high for this to just be over. Immediately.

The drive back to Duo's apartment was quiet, but he resisted the urge to turn on the radio.

Why the hell was this so hard?

He and Trowa talked all the time - they talked while they worked out or played chess or worked on paperwork or engines or stayed up late to keep each other company in the med bay or while they fucked. They talked about work, joked about the guys, talked about whatever book they had just read and were trading back and forth to each other.

Duo parked in front of his apartment and saw Trowa's car just across the street.

He sighed and got out of the car and watched Trowa do the same.

The frown was back. Actually, Duo realized, the frown had been there almost the entire night.

"I… I guess I'll see you when I see you?" Duo said.

He scratched at the back of his neck, at the small scar at the nape of his neck he had had since he was a teenager, since some bastard had tried to take his braid.

The frown was worse, almost a full blown scowl.

But Duo didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do - hell, the only method that he had found to be successful in getting rid of that smirk involved shoving Trowa against a hard surface and fucking him until he was mewling like a wild animal and saying Duo's name over and over again.

"You called me, Duo."

Duo frowned.

"What?"

Trowa made a gesture with his right hand.

"This - you called me and said you wanted to do this."

"I… yeah."

"Why? Why did we just spend two hours miserable together?"

Duo swallowed hard. Trowa had been miserable too. Great. Duo had managed to ruin both of their nights to the point that Trowa couldn't even enjoy his fancy food and wine.

"I…"

"You said you wanted to go out on a date. You said you wanted to be with me, to spend time with me."

"Yeah, well -"

"But that wasn't a date, Duo."

Now it was Duo frowning.

"It was too," he argued. "It was a fancy meal and candlelight and that fancy civilian shit you and Quatre like."

Trowa stared at him as though he was crazy, as though he had just said he wanted to try out the Zero system again.

And then Trowa laughed. His deep, warm baritone chuckle that always did funny things to Duo when he managed to coax it out of Trowa.

Except for this time. This time Duo flushed and looked away from Trowa's smile and tried not to hate himself even more. He was so fucking stupid. He was a joke.

"Duo."

He knew that tone.

The 'I didn't sit beside your unconscious body for the last two days just so you could wake up and tell me you're fine when I saw the surgeon's notes' tone.

Duo swallowed hard and met Trowa's gaze again.

"Do you have any popcorn?"

Duo frowned.

"What?"

"Do you have any popcorn, in your apartment?"

Duo nodded.

"Why don't we have some while we watch the vid feed of Heero's training session today?"

Duo stared at him.

"Why?"

Trowa shrugged one shoulder.

"Because I want to go on a date. I want to be with you, to spend time with you."

"You don't -"

"Duo, why did you do all of this tonight?"

"Because Wufei started ranting about relationships and commitments and not running away from things that mattered to me and - I don't know. I thought you wanted it. I thought you'd enjoy it."

"I'd enjoy sitting on your couch and laughing at vids of Heero punching eighteen year olds."

"Yeah, but that's not -"

"Duo, I'm not looking for a Quatre substitute. I don't love you because you aren't Quatre, because you don't give a shit about Terran things and I love you because you pick up a knife at a fancy restaurant and judge its merit as a weapon."

Duo flushed again.

"Sorry, I - wait. You love you."

Trowa stared at him.

"Tro… Tro, the only people who've said that to me are all dead. I don't - you can't -"

Trowa reached out and tangled their fingers together.

"I love you and you're stuck with me, Duo. Deal with it."


End file.
